Thursday, June 30, 2005

Watch Television

There are some cool things to watch on the boob tube. One of the newest shows I've taken a fancy to is '30 days' which is produced by the director of the documentary 'Supersize Me'.

The premise is simple. A camera crew follows a person as they do something for 30 days. The premier episode had the director and his girlfriend living and working on minimum wage in Columbus Ohio. It was hard to watch.

The latest episode was the best so far however. They took a good ole pork eating, Christian white boy from West Virginia and shipped him up to Dearborn Michigan to live as a Muslim for a month. He was instructed to follow all the customs including dress, appearance, diet and religious observance. It was fascinating to watch. The guy they got was, in all truth, an Ugly American and as such found impossible to keep from doing and saying thing that were ignorant and or/rude. But I really have to give it to the guy. He stuck it out. He opened his mind and worked to understand a people and a culture that was completely alien to him. His biggest struggle seemed to be with the prayers, which he refused to take part in for most of the month. He tried to discuss his reservations with an Imam but the language barrier made it hard. In the end he found a contractor who was building a new Mosque who helped explain a lot of things and helped him understand what was going on. In the end he did go through the motions of the prayer (while holding a small gold crucifix in his hand).

I wonder what his neighbors will say to him, or how they will treat him now that he's safely back in his insular home town. It would make for a neat follow up.

The next episode will take a Conservative Red State Homophobe and send him to San Francisco. He will have a gay room mate, join a gay sports team and work at a job that caters to gay clientele. Should be interesting. Go check out the show. It's on FX Network